


Through the Years

by Freckles_From_Brooklyn



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Childhood Friends AU, Contains hints of Mechanisms!Jon, Pre Canon, Pre relationship Jmart, and also hints of knitter!Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29656977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freckles_From_Brooklyn/pseuds/Freckles_From_Brooklyn
Summary: Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood were inseparable-- until they got separated.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Inseparable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437677) by [voiceless_terror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voiceless_terror/pseuds/voiceless_terror). 



Jonathan Sims was what many teachers referred to in private as a precocious little shit. He was smart, and he knew it. He excelled on his assignments, but his social skills and social awareness were both sorely lacking. He’d speak out of turn, interrupt other kids in the classroom, even interrupt the teachers. As a result, he was disliked by his teachers and shunned by his peers. He wasn’t even bullied all that often. Everyone just ignored him. He’d spend lunch, recess, any free time he got huddled in a corner, scribbling furiously in a large, leatherbound notebook.

Martin was the new kid. He always was. His mom had to work a bunch of different jobs to support them, and as a result, they moved a lot. This was his fourth school in three years. He hated moving around, hated never being able to fit in, hated never being able to make friends, but he never complained. He knew better. It didn’t help that he was shy. It also didn’t help that he looked like a target. He was taller than most of his classmates and chubbier, too, and he wore ill-fitting clothes and large wire-framed glasses. He might as well have had “PICK ON ME” tattooed on his forehead. 

Martin had noticed Jon on his first day. Jon sat in front of him in class, and he fascinated Martin. How could this kid answer every single question right, and still have the teachers glare at him like that? How did the smallest, scrawniest boy that Martin had ever met avoid the wrath of the bullies? Truthfully, Martin was scared. He avoided Jon for the first week. He was sure that whatever was up with the other boy, it wasn’t something he wanted anything to do with. Eventually, however, his curiosity overcame him. One day at lunch, he approached Jon, who was crammed in a corner, writing in his book in between bites of food. 

“Um, can I, er, sit here?” Martin asked cautiously. “I mean, uh, if it’s okay with you?” a pair of dark eyes peered at him over the top of the book, and Martin got a weird feeling, like he was being X-rayed. 

“What do you want?” Jon snapped. “Are you going to make fun of me?”

“N-no!” Martin stammered. “I— I just want someone to eat lunch with. It’s fine, I can find somewhere else.” He turned and scanned the room, clutching his brown paper lunch bag to his chest.

“It’s alright.” Jon’s voice was soft and quiet behind him. “You can stay.”

“R-really?” Martin asked, turning back around. Jon shrugged. 

“They bully you too,” He said. “The least I can do is give you a safe place.”

“Oh! Um, Thank you,” Martin said. He sat down next to Jon and pulled out his sandwich, taking a bite. They sat in silence for a while until Martin’s curiosity got the better of him again. “What are you writing?” he asked. Those dark brown eyes fixed on him again. 

“A story,” Jon replied. “I’m going to be a famous author one day!”

“A story?” Martin repeated. “What’s it about?”

“An evil wizard,” Jon replied absentmindedly, returning his attention to his book. “He’s cursed the land and made everything rather a mess, but the people are rebelling against him.”

“That sounds cool!” Martin said. “Could I read it once you’re done?” Jon looked over the book at him again, the tiniest hint of a smile playing across his lips. 

“Maybe if you’re nice,” he said. 


	2. Parting

From that point on, Jon and Martin were inseparable. They spent nearly every free moment together, often staying in the library after school was out so that Jon could help Martin with his homework. They lived pretty close together, so sometimes they’d meet in the park on weekends, or they’d go over to Jon’s house, but never to Martin’s. Martin didn’t want to subject his friend to his mother’s moods. 

Then something happened. Jon wasn’t in class. Martin didn’t really think anything of it, but he wasn’t in class the next day either, or the day after that, or the day after that, and Martin started to get worried. He tried calling Jon when his mother wasn’t home, but he’d either get the answering machine or Jon’s nan, who told him that Jon wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t talk to Jon for two weeks.

One weekend, Martin went to the park. His mom’s moods had been getting worse as of late, so Martin spent as much time as possible out of the house. He always went to the park, hoping Jon would be there, but he never was. But on that uncharacteristically sunny Saturday morning, as Martin walked through the gates of the park, he saw his friend. 

“Jon!” he called. “Jon! Over here!” Jon turned and saw Martin. He looked almost relieved as he ran over. As Martin got a closer look at him, however, he could see that Jon looked awful. His skin had an ashen quality to it, and his eyes were dull, with huge dark bags underneath.

“Christ, you look awful!” Martin exclaimed. “What’s wrong?” Jon glanced around nervously, then tugged Martin behind some bushes. 

“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” he hissed. 

“Cross my heart,” Martin swore. Jon took a deep breath before speaking.

“It was this  _ book _ ,” he said, then shuddered. Martin took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Jon took another book before continuing his story, telling Martin about the bloodstained pages and the thing that had  _ eaten _ the bully next door. “My nan said I imagined it,” he finished. “She doesn’t believe me, but she says I can’t go to school anymore because I have fits.” He looked up at Martin, desperation in his eyes. “You believe me, don’t you?” he asked. 

“Of course I believe you,” Martin said. He knew Jon wouldn’t lie about something like this. This seemed to be exactly what Jon was waiting to hear. He collapsed into Martin’s arms, sobbing into his friend’s chest. Unsure of what to do, Martin just wrapped his arms around Jon, rubbing his back in what he hoped was a comforting way. Jon eventually stopped crying, sniffling as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. 

“Anyway, I probably won’t see you again for a while,” he said. “Promise you won’t forget about me?”

“I promise,” Martin said. “Tell you what: here.” He unwrapped his scarf from around his neck. It was his first knitting project, a rather misshapen, lumpy tangle of dark green wool. He handed the scarf to Jon. “Take it,” he said. “You can give it back when we see each other again.” Jon looked at the scarf, then looked at Martin. He threw his arms around his friend, looking like he was about to start crying again. 

“I’m gonna miss you,” he said. 

“I’ll miss you too,” Martin replied, hugging him in return.


	3. Reunion

Martin didn’t see Jon again. Jon wasn’t at school for the rest of the year, and his mom lost her job again that summer, forcing them to move again. But Martin never forgot about his friend. He tried looking Jon up in the years that followed, finding articles about him in the Oxford University newspaper, as well as, perplexingly, a mention of him in a review of a steampunk space pirate folk band. When he saw the listing for a library position at the Magnus Institute, he jumped at the opportunity, perhaps padding his CV a little too enthusiastically. The Magnus Institute specialized in the weird and the creepy. If there was any job that could help him figure out what had happened to his friend, this was it. By some coincidence, or perhaps it was fate, about six months after Martin started working at the institute, he was having a chat with Rosie in the break room when she mentioned a new researcher that Elias had just hired. 

“He’s from Oxford,” she said, pulling a face. “I dunno, he seemed kinda snooty to me, but Mr. Bouchard seems to think he’ll really be an asset. Name’s Sims, I think.” Martin nearly choked on his tea.

“Sims?” He repeated. “Erm, his first name wouldn’t happen to be Jonathan, would it?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Rosie replied. “Why? You know him?” 

“I think I might,” Martin said. “I just don’t know if he remembers me.”

Jon didn’t seem to remember Martin. Martin made several attempts to talk to him, only to be met with a distasteful glare and stony silence. He eventually gave up. It was useless. He and Jon were never going to be friends again. Martin would have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t cried over it. Then something happened. Then Jon got promoted to Head Archivist, and Elias assigned Martin to work with him in the Archives. Martin’s heart sank. He’d just come to terms with losing his childhood best friend, now he’d have to work with him, have to be subjected to those icy cold glares day in and day out. Martin dragged his feet his first day on the job. He had a longer than usual conversation with Rosie, stopped in the bathroom to freshen up, and generally stalled as much as possible. He couldn’t avoid this forever, though, and he eventually made his way down to the Archives and knocked on Jon’s office door. 

“Come in.” Jon’s voice came from the other side, and Martin opened the door with shaking hands.

“I— I’m M-Martin Blackwood,” He stammered. “Elias said I was supposed to be working with you.”

“Martin… Blackwood?” Jon repeated slowly. He looked Martin up and down, recognition dawning in his eyes. He reached into his bag, pulling out a misshapen lumpy tangle of green wool. “This wouldn’t happen to be yours, would it?” he asked, laying the scarf out on the desk. Martin stared at the scarf, then stared at Jon. 

“I— I made that,” he said. “You remember me?”

“I do now,” Jon said. “Christ, Martin, why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Martin shifted his weight uncomfortably. 

“You… erm… always seemed to be rather pissed off at me,” he said. “I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

“God, I’m sorry,” Jon said, looking guilty. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been like that. I was a prick.”

“No! No, it’s okay,” Martin said. Jon stood up, walking around the desk to hug Martin. 

“I missed you,” He mumbled. 

“I missed you too,” Martin replied. 


End file.
